TeAM YYePG

RADAR TOMB RAIDER
LARA CROFT LIVES ON
Why Tomb Raider: Legend might not suck
PUBLISHER: Eidos DEVELOPER: Crystal Dynamics GENRE: Action RELEASE DATE: November 2005
Preview
IT’S AN UNDERSTATEMENT TO SAY THAT
Tomb Raider: Legend has had a tumultuous
existence thus far. With a new design team,
a desperate publisher, and thousands of jaded
fans, Legend has a lot of work to do if it’s going to
impress anyone. Can Lara Croft still wow the few
fans she has left in the wake of the unmitigated
critical flop that was Tomb Raider: The Angel of
Darkness? After what we’ve seen of Legend, our
answer is a pleased—but reserved—yes.
The design team over at Crystal Dynamics
(best known to PC gamers for the recent
Project: Snowblind) appears to have risen to the
occasion, taking the series back to its dungeondelving
roots while updating Tomb Raider’s look
and feel to take full advantage of the latest-generation
PC hardware. The game is now fully rendered
using Havok physics, and—as we
showed you in our June issue—Lara herself is
cuter, softer, and more realistic than before. Her
movements are much more agile and fluid this
time around, thanks in part to an overhauled
control system that looks to provide a considerable
change of pace from the clunky mess
found in Angel of Darkness.
LARA CROFT 2.0
But make no mistake: Crystal Dynamics isn’t out
to “fix” anything here. Legend has nothing to do
with Angel of Darkness; it’s a completely new
product built from the ground up and designed
with the series’ classic gameplay in mind. As
“Just when you
thought 3D
games were
connected to
your gag
reflex…Tomb
Raider makes it
all feel fresh and
new again.”
–CGW #152
FALLING FROM GRACE
“They’ve made
enough changes
to make it interesting,
but if
you didn’t like
the first game,
this won’t make
you change
your mind.”
–CGW #164
20 > COMPUTER GAMING WORLD
“For those who
can dig it, Tomb
Raider III is by
far the biggest
and baddest of
the series.”
–CGW #176
associate brand manager Mike Schmitt puts it,
“[We took] some time off after the release of Angel
of Darkness and essentially [did] a brand audit—
we’ve made a conscious attempt to get back to
some of the things that made the first game so
special.” Of course, this means some good oldfashioned
acrobatics, high-tech gadgets, and
dual-pistol firefights, but there’s more to Legend
than gunplay and hot pants.
Central to the game’s design is the incorporation
of new puzzle elements into the action.
Crystal Dynamics is trying to move away from
the “find the key and throw the switch” puzzles
found in previous Tomb Raider games, instead
focusing on environment-oriented challenges
with multiple solutions. For example, while
searching for a hidden passageway, Lara might
be able to kick over a statue to uncover the
entrance or perhaps blow the passageway open
with a gun emplacement or a grenade. We’re
assured that a lot of effort has gone into making
fun, exciting puzzles with minimal frustration.
THE PLOT THICKENS
With both new and classic elements in place,
what direction can the series possibly take to
tell a good story that isn’t just another by-thenumbers
artifact-hunting plot? Unfortunately,
Eidos still has its lips sealed about story
specifics. “We’re not giving too much away yet,”
remarks Schmitt. “Lara will encounter a nemesis
long thought dead as the [game] unfolds. Let’s
just say we’ll learn a lot more about Lara’s
past…and what makes her tick.” / Ryan Scott
“Gameplay
hasn’t changed.
You’re still doing
the same running-jumpingclimbing-swimming
moves,
but with a few
new additions.”
–CGW #188
A timeline of Lara’s exploits
“The hours
spent repeating
levels prove that
the designers
have nothing
more to offer.”
–CGW #200
“And thus gaming’shighestprofile
franchise
is run into the
ground and
kicked repeatedly
in the
head.” –CGW
#231
1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2003
REGULAR
THE GOOD, THE
BAD & THE UGLY
SEPTEMBER 2005
THE GOOD
WORLD OF
WARCRAFT SHIPS
TO CHINA
Not content with the
paltry 1.5 million
users the game has
garnered on this side
of the Pacific,
Blizzard has opened
the World of WarCraft floodgates in China.
We don’t know what this means for the
subscription numbers, but the Chinese
version’s 500,000 beta users definitely
can’t be a bad thing. To put it in perspective:
Blizzard considers North America to
be this game’s test market.
THE BAD
CITY OF HEROES PATCH WOES
The latest City of Heroes patch neuters
many of the game’s travel powers (Flight,
Super Jump, and Super Speed), stripping
away the extreme PVP advantage they provide
by disabling them during combat. This
effectively puts characters with Super
Speed at a disadvantage, since there’s no
corresponding “defense power” offering the
extra kick that Hover and Combat Jumping
provide to Flight and Super Jump, respectively.
Angry players have the official COH
forums in an uproar.
THE UGLY
ULTIMA ONLINE 2,
TAKE 3
EA’s Ultima Online 2
has been canceled…for
the third time. You’ve
probably never heard
about this one—hell,
nobody’s heard of this one except us, seeing
as how we were pitched a UO2 cover
about 10 months back. But now it’s dead
again, replaced with—you guessed it—
another groanworthy UO expansion. And
this time, EA is adding elves to the game,
despite the fact that elves don’t actually
exist in the Ultima continuity. /
>> By mid-2006, Apple computers will have Intel inside. Here’s hoping we’ll be blasting each other in UT 2007 over AppleTalk servers shortly thereafter. >>